> The idea that a manual vehicle is worth less than its autotragic counterpart is a fallacy.
Not true, I know from experience from selling cars, new and used, even back in the 1980s and 1990s while a salesperson and sales manager, manual transmission vehicles sold slowly and for way less money. It is even worse today, I have sold wrecks of vehicles quicker then fair to nice manual transmission vehicles. Your expereince may vary. I worked at a Corvette shop about the 1990s, back then most Corvette owners and buyers wanted automatic transmissions.
> people who know how to drive one, and would PREFER to drive one are more numerous than you seem to believe.
Report: Only 18 Percent Of Americans Can Drive Manual
A new report shows fewer Americans own a car with manual transmission let alone know how to operate one. And there appear to be a number of reasons for it.
www.cbsnews.com
"The third pedal is also bad for re-sale value, on average selling for $2,000 less than cars with automatic transmissions."
Ranger with an automatic 4.0L XT
$4505 private party
$5592 trade in
Ranger with a manual 4.0L XT
$3928
$5015 trade in
Feel free to run it for any model Ford that offers both a manual and automatic transmission and post any result that shows the manual selling for more. Try running it for a car such as a Ford Taurus and see what it come out to.
The amount of people that know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle is much larger then those that WANT one. My wife knows how to drive a manual transmission, she would literally not buy one unless it was the absolute last choice, and that was before her knee surgery. My neighbor grew up driving heavy equipment and tractors, he is 66 years old, with knee replacements, uses a walker, and he literally can not drive a manual transmission, as one of his knees would likely pop.
Many of the people that have actually driven a manual transmission are from the 1970s and before. Many are now hobbling around on walkers and they last thing they would look forward to is driving a manual transmission in rush hour stop and go traffic. They might fancy a v-8 Ranger, if they knew it existed and understood it, but, the ones thirsting after a manual with $5k or more to spend are few and far between.
If I thought I could fix up my manual transmission 4x4 Bronco 2 so the body was in at least good shape and sell it for $2000-$2500, I would. But, I can not, so, I am unlikely to fix the body for a long time and more likely to put the drive train into a Ranger or just swap in an automatic. $0.02